Pallbearer

There is a lot of clichéd imagery associated with doom that tends to revolve around alternative universes where wizards built pyramids on other planets, and other such fantasies. This otherworldliness plays an important yet subtle part in Pallbearer’s film clip for their song ‘Watcher In The Dark’. The video was shot in both the forest and the desert, and as the song builds from its ethereal intro into its crushing main section, the sonic shift is heralded by a seemingly naturally formed pyramid on a lake.

“A lot of it was up to the director, but initially he gave us the treatment of what he wanted to do,” explains Rowland. “We had some discussion primarily between Brett and the director to take it in a different direction to what was initially intended and make it considerably more psychedelic. That’s how it ended up with those kaleidoscopic effects. We’re really, really excited with how psychedelic it ended up – it suits the song quite well.”

‘Watcher In The Dark’ was written in drop A tuning, which was used for the entirety of Sorrow And Extinction. “I think drop A ended up being sort of the natural progression for us because the band that Brett and I were in prior to Pallbearer was a totally improvised heavy psychedelic band, and we used drop A in that band,” says Rowland.

Staying with the technical side of Pallbearer, Rowland now delves into what type of bass guitar he uses and why. “Over the last few years my main thing that I have been playing is a Fender Precision Bass, [but] last year, for most of that year, I have used a Guild B-301 bass from the ’70s that I like a lot. But I ended up switching recently to playing a Paul Reed Smith Kingfisher bass on this most recent tour, because I wanted to give the Guild bass a bit of a break ’cause it’s old and I probably don’t need to be so hard with it as much as I have been,” he chuckles.

Rowland’s inventory of bass guitars pales in comparison to the array that the two guitarists Campbell and Holt have at their disposal during a show. “Devin’s got a Baritone Flying V that he just got recently plus a Les Paul as a backup, and Brett has a Paul Reed Smith Vela and a Gibson SG, plus they both have Stratocasters and a number of other guitars that they just swap in and out of depending on what they feel like playing.”